Dengue has passed, Dirian, Contacting

Hello Family,

This week I'm feeling a lot better! I'm thinking more clearly, as well. It was a little difficult with dengue because I felt like the negative thoughts were a lot more present. It was ugly... but doing great! I didn't have pain in my body at all. Since we couldn't go out last week, we were preaching the gospel from our balcony area and we called old investigators and talked to them over the phone. We were in our house but not off-duty. Everyone looked at me and said, "You have dengue???" because I didn't feel the effects of dengue nearly as strong this time around. All the little kids have had the same thing this week and it's frustrating to see that the parents think that taking them to get a non-professional massage will fix everything. That's what they do here if you're sick! They tell you that you are empachado or "stopped-up" or "plugged in your gut" and then you go to the massage therapist that has no licensed degree or study or education and supposedly that does the trick! Well, it doesn't. Superstitions are very real here.

Dirian is doing great. Her DVD player didn't work and so we watched The Restoration (20 min version) and she said that it cleared up a lot of questions she had (but didn't tell us what questions it cleared up). We're going to try to watch How Rare a Possession next time. We asked about what her dad thought or said the last time that he came and we were teaching her. She told us that he scolded her for listening to false doctrines but she told us that she doesn't see what's so wrong about listening to us. It's going to be fun getting permission for her baptism... :D

The rest of this week was contacting like crazy. And we've found a lot of potential investigators. Elder Bustillos and I always say to each other, "I fear no man!" and we go for it, trying to find all the people that are ready to hear us and follow God's voice. Los míos me escuchan y siguen en pos de mí.
"Mine listen to me and follow after me."

Thank you for all your prayers. It's not been easy these past few weeks without baptisms. Sometimes it's our turn to find, other times it's our turn to teach, and other times to baptize. Everything will run it's own course like the rivers that run freely around all obstacles. Elder Bustillos and I continue to practice how to do a baptism so that we'll be ready when the day arrives to baptize. :)

Love you all
Elder Tuft

Kristen,
Thanks for your letter. I stopped writing in my journal while I was sick and now I've gotta keep it up.

Dad,

I'm going to print off the talk you told me about and study it this week. I'm studying a lot about the Pearl of Great Price right now and I'm in the middle of Abraham already. It's super cool when you have a study manual on the side of the scriptures to help understand what the verses are saying.

Mom,
LOVE YOU! I think I answered all your questions in the letter but if not just send me a quick note for next week about what I left out.